Hourglass - Recap

Clark and Pete visit a retirement community to work with the residents, part of thirty hours of community service they must complete to graduate. Pete wonders why Clark picked this place until Lana appears with a cart full of books. Clark feigns ignorance that Lana worked there. She asks who he is here to see and he tells her he has come to read to Cassandra. Lana replies that some of the nurses say that Cassandra can see the future.

Clark and Pete stop in Cassandra’s doorway. She knows two people have come – because she heard their squeaky shoes coming down the hallway. Pete asks if she can foresee the future and Clark chides him for lacking subtlety. She drops her Braille book and when Pete hands it back, their hands touch. She tells Pete to check his pockets because it’s a long walk home. He checks his pockets and realizes he has left his keys in his car, and leaves Clark behind.

Lana pushes her cart of books to another room where she meets Harry Bollston. Hearing her name, he recalls how the Langs moved to Smallville in 1938 and bought a few dust bowl farms. His knowledge of local history impresses Lana; Harry explains that this is his obsession. The he asks if she is his next ‘victim.’ She tells Harry he doesn’t look that scary, and agrees to take him for a walk around the grounds and fill him in on what the Langs have been doing.

Lana pushes Harry around the grounds and onto the bridge spanning a koi pond, where he asks her to run back to his room and get him a scarf so he doesn’t catch a chill. No sooner does she leave than Harry withdraws a package of cigarettes from his robe. Fumbling, he drops his lighter and struggles to retrieve it. His actions spur a coughing fit, and he overreaches, tipping his chair into the pond! Electricity surges around him – and the years slide away, revealing a young and vigorous man! On the far side of the pond a meteor rock glows softly.

As Harry coughed, Cassandra Carver started coughing. When Clark helps her they make contact and she tells Clark that someone close to him will die, very soon.

Clark races home. In the barn, Jonathan and Martha Kent use power tools to work on a repair. Jonathan is puzzled when his saw suddenly stops. Clark has pulled the plug, and tells his parents they should leave such tasks to him. The Kents find Clark’s attitude strange. Jonathan explains that a little danger comes with farm life, and Martha asks what’s bothering Clark. Soon enough, Clark tells his parents about Cassandra. They dismiss her assertions as attention seeking. Martha claims no one can see the future, and even if Cassandra could see it, no one can change it. If Cassandra really foresaw death, Martha reasons, why didn’t she give Clark sufficient detail to prevent it?

Young Harry Bollston, unrecognized by staff and residents, returns to his room. There he pulls an envelope of clippings from beneath his mattress and thumbs through the contents. They describe how a man named Harry Volk murdered the son of his music teacher years earlier. Harry gazes at his young self in the mirror and says softly to himself that fate has given him another chance, and that “this time they’re gonna pay.”

At the Beanery, waitress Zoë Garfield serves Harry a meal. He cranes to look at the board with its many coffees, and finally asks for a plain coffee. The price of it shocks him; Zoë tells him that he sounds like her grandfather. Lana, Clark and Chloe enter and take the table behind him. They discuss how Lana lost Harry. Lana wonders who would kidnap a harmless old man. Chloe jokes that perhaps one of the koi turned into a piranha and ate him, a theory Clark laughingly supports. Chloe catches Harry eavesdropping and suggests better technique. He claims to be new to town and chats briefly before offering his hope that they find their missing person. His anachronisms puzzle Lana.

Back at the retirement community, young Harry plays the piano beautifully. Cassandra complements him and he tells her that he was supposed to enter the Metropolis Conservatory. This confuses Cassandra, who knows that the Conservatory closed its doors in the nineteen seventies. Harry quickly corrects himself. Cassandra asks for a hand back to her room, but Harry declines, telling the old oracle that he already knows his future.

Clark delivers produce to the Luthor home. Lex appears, driving like a maniac. That concerns Clark in light of what Cassandra told him. Clark urges caution and finally reveals what Cassandra told him. Like Clark’s parents, Lex dismisses Cassandra’s statements as a method of getting attention. Lex does ask Clark for the name of the seer, and Clark tells him.

Later, Lana studies a board that displays pictures of the retirement community residents. Someone has removed the picture of Harry Bollston as a young man. Worse, when Lana went to the office she discovered the police there, and that Harry Bollston was actually Harry Volk, a convicted murderer. Volk almost received a full scholarship to the Metropolis Conservatory, but his teacher recommended a different student. Harry never forgave the man, and retaliated by killing his teacher’s son, saying that the teacher had killed Harry’s future and so he felt killing his teacher’s future, his child, to be suitable repayment. This murder earned Harry his jail term.

Elsewhere, a man watches the football game when his lights go out. He grabs a flashlight to investigate and sees a man at the door – Harry. Harry explains that a bad line has caused the outage and asks to check the man’s circuit breakers for problems. The man shows him the box and as Harry inspects it he strikes up a conversation, mentioning that the man’s name is Jim Gage and asking if he is a relative of Randolph Gage. The man confirms this and tells Harry his father passed away some years back. Harry recalls that Gage opened the first car dealership in Smallville in 1935 and the Jim Gage is proud to confirm it, saying they have three dealerships in three counties now. Harry says the Jim’s father left him a bright future as he reaches into his toolbox for a coil of piano wire...

Clark visits Cassandra, who remembers him from his footfall. She tells him that when one loses one sense the others improve. Clark asks when she first saw the future and she explains that a meteor struck the field behind her home. The flash from it burned her optic nerves, destroying her eyesight. Clark explains that his friends and family do not believe in Cassandra’s gift. She replies that people are usually afraid of the unknown, and only want to know it if they’re sure it holds happiness. But that is not a promise Cassandra can make. She can, she says, only show signposts. What the individual does with them is his choice. Clark says that he has many questions and wants answers; Cassandra offers her hand. Clark accepts it and suddenly finds himself in a dark world, an endless cemetery. Near him he sees headstones for Jonathan and Martha Kent, for Pete Ross, Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang! The tombstones beyond them extend forever. Shocked, Clark breaks contact and races home.

At their farmhouse, Martha suggests Clark hallucinated the graveyard, and that he consider the source: a woman about whom he knows little who may simply want attention. Clark explains how Cassandra lost her sight and Jonathan points out that losing her vision to a meteor flash does not guarantee her precognitive gifts are real. Clark wonders if he will outlive all those he loves and Jonathan tries to reassure him, telling him he is the only person who controls his destiny. But Clark doesn’t feel in control of anything.

Lex approaches Cassandra in the garden outside her room. She does not know him but her sharp hearing suggests expensive shoes. He introduces himself; she knows of the Luthors and wants to know what Lex wants with “an old blind woman.” Lex tells her that she made quite an impression on Clark. Lex wants her insights into Clark’s mysterious side but she cannot help him even if she wanted to. Her gift works only for the individual who takes her hand. She holds out her hand as an offer but Lex does not accept. She asks if he fears what he will see, or if he believes his father has entirely planned his future. Lex says neither is true and that his disinterest stems from his belief that people forge their future. She tries to tempt him, suggesting he may see his friend Clark, or perhaps something else, but he says goodbye and leaves. She invites him to return when he is ready for what she offers.

Clark enters the office of The Torch and discovers Lana already there, but Chloe absent. Lana stands before Chloe’s “Wall of Weird” and they discuss how the wall documents the strange occurrences since the day the meteors fell. Lana asks if she is one of those occurrences, pointing to the Time Magazine picture of her titled ‘Heart Break in the Heart Land’ not far from the ‘three headed calf’ and the ‘monster from Crater Lake.’ Clark assures her the wall has nothing to do with her. Lana then points out that everyone keeps their dark secrets hidden, but her private tragedy is right there for the world to see, forever. She explains how people treat her differently when they know of her past, like she will break. Clark states his belief that these people simply want to help, and Lana agrees, but says that all they do is remind her of the most painful moment of her life. She asks Clark how that would make him feel, and he says it makes him wish he could go back in time and erase that moment forever. Lana hoped high school would be different but now wonders if all she’ll be is the ‘little girl in the fairy princess costume who lost her parents.’ Clark tells her he doesn’t see her that way, and she accepts that – but believes he may be the only person who doesn’t.

Later, Pete and Chloe join Clark in his loft retreat, having answered his request to meet. Lana has had enough weirdness for one day and will not show up. Pete has found an article in the paper about the victim of a murder, found blindfolded and strangled with piano wire – the same method Harry Volk used to kill decades earlier. Chloe suggests a copycat killer, but Clark wonders who would copy the modus operandi of a killer from sixty years ago, and especially two days after Harry Volk mysteriously disappeared. It is, he says, too coincidental. Chloe points out reasonably that Harry cannot leave his wheelchair to commit murder. She did find a picture of Harry from the nineteen forties, and he looks very much like the kid she, Clark and Lana met in the Beanery. Perhaps Harry has a grandson who is copying his crime. Clark wonders if the kid they met wasn’t Harry himself. Pete suggests that if someone IS copying Harry’s crime, that person might have sent him fan mail.

Harry, meanwhile, continues to play classical music at the Beanery and drink coffee by the gallon. Zoë tells him she must close the shop and he asks for a final cup, which he will drink while she cleans to the music of Chopin, or as close as he can play on a piano that is out of tune.

Clark, Pete and Chloe enter the retirement home in search of any clue that might lurk in Harry’s room. Cassandra hears Clark and calls him; he sends Pete and Chloe to Harry’s room while he visits Cassandra. She tells him that he left quickly the other day and that she hoped he would return. Cassandra explains that she always sees the visions and tells Clark he is the first of her subjects who also saw the vision. But, then, Clark isn’t like other people. More than once she has touched people and seen pain and despair – and Clark helping to fix these. She believes his destiny is to help people – to save them from fear and darkness. Clark wonders how he should do that but Cassandra cannot help him with that part of it. He must discover how on his own. She then tells Clark he can fear his future or embrace it and that the choice is his, before offering her hand again. Someone reluctantly, Clark accepts it. This time he sees a mélange of people in peril. When he breaks contact he asks who they were but Cassandra cannot tell him, beyond that they are people who need his help.

In Harry’s room, Pete and Chloe search for clues. They find no fan mail but do discover a number of clipping from the Smallville Ledger that suggest Harry’s obsession with Smallville. Among them is an account describing a waitress who saved a customer with the Heimlich maneuver. The picture accompanying this article is of Zoë.

At the Beanery, Harry writes something on a napkin and hands it to Zoë, who cannot read Greek and does not understand the message. Harry is mildly surprised schools no longer teach Greek, but translates his message: ‘The sins of the father are visited on the children.’ Harry then reveals that he knows more about Zoë. He knows her last name is Gardner and claims her grandmother helped destroy his future and then says that he intends revenge: he will destroy Zoë’s future.

As Harry closes with Zoë, Clark bursts through the front door. Harry seizes a large knife from the kitchen and threatens the waitress, then backs out the door with her. When he turns, he is surprised to see that Clark has managed to circle around him. He sees a truck rumbling down the road and throws Zoë in front of it; Clark hurls himself atop her and shields her as the truck rumbles over the both (tearing open Clark’s jacket and shooting sparks from his back). The driver apologizes profusely, happily surprised that neither pedestrian is injured. Clark looks around but Harry has fled. Clark visually sweeps the area, and suddenly Harry is there, stabbing him with the kitchen knife! The cheap blade shatters against Clark’s skin and Clark knocks Harry through the air a dozen feet. Harry lands hard on the roof of a car, unconscious. The car windows shatter and its alarm blares.

At the Kent home later, Martha reports that Zoë will be fine, and that Harry is under observation at the hospital overnight. Clark told the police he chanced onto the situation, keeping Cassandra a secret. He tells his parents what Cassandra told him about his destiny, prompting Jonathan to wonder if she knew Clark’s secret, and to tell Clark not to see her any more. Jonathan tells his son that his destiny may be to protect people, but his parents’ destiny is to protect him.

Lex calls and Clark goes to visits him at home. They look at the Porsche that Lex drove the night Clark saved his life. Clark wonders why Lex still has the car and Lex explains by analogy to another rich man who, caught in a hotel fire, clung to a ledge for an hour until rescued. Later he bought the hotel and always stayed in the same room, hoping that fate could not find him there twice. This surprises Clark, who thought Lex did not believe in fate. Lex confirms that he does not, but that this incident made him wonder. A team examined the car thoroughly and told Lex the impact could not have torn the roof open. Lex wonders how that might have happened, but Clark only says the experts must be mistaken. Lex asks if Clark remembers what happened and Clark claims he does not. It will have to remain an unsolved mystery. Clark says perhaps fate has something else in store and Lex replies that Clark has spent too much time around Cassandra.

The following morning a policeman comes to retrieve Harry from the hospital. The doctor escorts him to Harry’s room, where they discover Harry – returned to his older self. Harry claims the kid they expected to find kidnapped him days ago and left him chained to the bed when he escaped. He suggests the youngster kidnapped him because he was obsessed with Harry’s ancient murder. Unaware that the boy and Harry are the same person, the police free him and return him to his residence.

Learning of this later, Clark expresses skepticism. He goes to the retirement home and discovers the meteors in the pond when they make him ill. He goes inside to speak with Harry, recounting how they found the picture of Zoë Garfield in Harry’s room. Harry is outraged that Clark and his friends rooted through his private papers and demands Clark’s name. Clark introduces himself but comments that they’ve already met. Clark tells Harry he knows that he and the boy are the same person. Harry accuses him of having a too-active imagination. Clark doesn’t understand how Harry did it, but remains certain of his conclusion. Harry remembers Jonathan Kent, son of Hiram Kent, but remembers no Clark in the family tree, hinting that he is aware the Kents adopted Clark. Then he feigns distress and calls the nurse, complaining that Clark is harassing him. The nurse orders Clark from the room.

Sometime later, Harry returns to the koi pond and throws himself and his chair in. Once again, electricity surges through the waters...

The friends examine all the material Chloe could find, hoping to unearth a connection between the victims. Clark recalls how Harry told Zoë that her grandmother helped kill his future. They learn that Harry has disappeared again, his empty wheelchair found by the pond. When Clark reports that the pond contains meteors Chloe realizes that Harry somehow exploits their power to become younger. Lana, unfamiliar with the properties of the meteors, does not understand and Clark promises to explain later. The big break comes when Chloe finds an article about Harry’s trial. Harry’s victims are all descendants of people who served on the jury that sent him to prison so long ago. Then Clark sees something that chills him: Hiram Kent, Jonathan’s father, served on Harry’s jury. Clark realizes Harry plans to kill his father!

Harry knocks on the door of the Kent farmhouse. Martha answers and Harry fabricates a story about a gas leak. Martha wonders what happened to Kurt, the regular gas man, and Harry answers that Kurt is on vacation. Martha excuses herself and closes the door then tries the phone but gets only static. An inner door opens and Harry stands there; he has realized that Martha tricked him with a fake name. She asks why he’s there and he admits the truth: he has come to kill Jonathan, not for what he did but for what his father did – sent Harry to prison. Martha backs away, then suddenly grabs a vase and swings it in a roundhouse into the side of Harry’s head. She grabs the car keys and races outside. But she has a bad surprise at the car. Harry has flattened all the tires! Martha races into the barn and Harry follows. She has disappeared by the time he arrives. Collecting a machete from a rack, Harry turns on a grinder and sharpens the tool, while he calls to Martha.

Hidden in the silo, Martha begins to believe she is safe until suddenly the machete spears in through the slats of the vent! She tries to escape but Harry fills the only door. When he enters, she grabs the grain hatch release and pulls hard! Corn falls on both of them as they wrestle for the machete.

Jonathan drives home, and then slams in the brakes when Clark appears before him. Clark wonders where his mother is, and tells his father someone is trying to kill him! Spotting the flat tires, Clark realizes Harry has already come to the Kent farmhouse. Looking for Martha, Clark spots her fading struggles in the silo with X-Ray vision and races for the door. He opens it and corn spills out as he and Jonathan clamber in. they uncover and revive Martha, who is relatively unharmed. Jonathan points out that Clark was wrong because no one close to him died. Not far away a hand, the only visible part of Harry Volk, pokes from the corn like an evil flower. As they watch, it shrivels and ages.

Lex drops in to see Cassandra, who confesses that she did not expect to see him again. He comes bearing gifts, a large bouquet of flowers. She comments that the Greeks did, as well, suggesting that Lex has an ulterior motive. He admits that he has come to accept her offer, and she throws his words back at him, reminding him that he claimed to control his own destiny. He says he still believes this, but wonders if there are signs that might help him in his future. He plans not to do good things, but great things! Cassandra tells Lex he does not need her for that, and Lex challenges her with her own words, asking if she is afraid of what she will see. Cassandra tells Lex to sit and reminds him that she warned him.

Lex’s future shows him as the President of the United States, dressed in a pure white suit with a black glove concealing his right hand. Lex exits the Oval Office and emerges into a field of sunflowers that stretches to the horizon in all directions. As Lex strokes one with his gloved hand, it dies. And then all of them die, crumbling away to reveal a stark land covered with human bones as far as the horizon. The sky turns to angry red and fat drops of blood fall, soaking Lex in gore.

The vision ends and Lex asks Cassandra what it means, but she does not reply. Moments later, Lex realizes the ancient prophetess has died, perhaps from seeing his vision. Backpedaling, Lex drops the flowers as he cries for help. Lex crosses the hall as a nurse appears; followed seconds later by Clark. The nurse tells Clark she’s sorry, but that Cassandra is gone. Clark realizes that she saw her own future – someone close to him has died. Saddened, he leaves.

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